Dead South | Book 3 | Dead Hope Read online

  Dead Hope

  Dead South Book Three

  Zach Bohannon

  Copyright © 2021 by Zach Bohannon

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Edited by Jennifer Collins

  Cover by Yocla Designs

  zachbohannon.com

  moltenuniversemedia.com

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  The Story Continues

  Also by Zach Bohannon

  About Zach Bohannon

  1

  Brooke sat against a wall, the ground beneath her hard and cold. Darkness surrounded her, with not even a candle or an open window to help her distinguish day from night.

  She’d come to only minutes earlier, unsure of how long she’d been out. She’d tried moving her hands, but to no avail. Both her wrists were cuffed to chains that were seemingly attached to the wall. Moving her legs, she confirmed that her ankles weren’t bound. If the chains holding her to the wall were long enough, she’d be able to stand, but both of her legs were numb and asleep, making her wary of attempting it.

  Brooke only a vague memory of the last moments before she’d been knocked unconscious. Terrence had been standing beside her, but she wasn’t sure if he’d also been knocked out and brought to this place or if he had suffered some worse fate.

  She clenched her jaw as she remembered Hope’s Dawn. The place had been burned down, and several people were dead, including Garrett. And as her clouded mind cleared, she thought of her son.

  “Lucas.”

  Brooke maneuvered herself onto her knees and pushed upward. Despite her legs being asleep, she managed to stand. She grabbed onto the wall with one hand to hold herself upright, and then ran her other hand down one of the chains to see how long they were. Standing, she hardly had any slack to move. Brooke pulled on the chains, checking whether there was any give in the wall. But they were locked firmly in place. She wouldn’t be yanking them out.

  But she had to find Lucas.

  He was alive. She’d convinced herself he had to be. In their brief search of Hope’s Dawn’s ruins, she and Terrence hadn’t found any of the children to be dead. This made her think that whoever had attacked the camp had spared the children and likely taken them captive. Lucas was somewhere nearby. All she had to do was find a way out of this room to get to him.

  Even though she knew it was useless, Brooke pulled on the chains again. The cuffs around her wrists dug into her skin, but she didn’t care. She pulled harder, tears building in her eyes as she fought against the pain.

  “Terrence? Hugo? Are you in here? Somebody, please?”

  She was about to scream when she heard footsteps outside. They were approaching the room, and she listened to the rattling of a door handle.

  Trying to keep the chains from making too much noise, Brooke sat back down on the cold floor. She didn’t want her captives thinking she was trying to escape, even though it’d be natural for her to do so.

  The door opened, and some light came into the room. A figure stood at the entrance for a moment before making their way across the room. They arrived at the far wall to Brooke’s right. There was a noise, and then the room filled with light, so that Brooke had to cover her eyes to shield them from it. The person had opened a blackout shade, revealing a window Brooke hadn’t known was there.

  When her eyes finally adjusted, she glanced around the room to see two men. The man on the right wore a patchy beard and a denim jacket which didn’t hide his beer gut. The other was more clean-cut, with a shaved face, and almost had the look of a former varsity football player now in his 40s. The one with the patchy beard kneeled a few feet in front of her. He stared at her with a callous expression clouding his face. It shifted into a grin.

  “You don’t recognize me.”

  Brooke didn’t. She’d never seen this man in her life.

  “Where am I?” she asked. “What do you want?”

  “We want to know where he is,” the other man said, still standing tall behind his counterpart.

  “Where who is?”

  The burly man didn’t hesitate to backhand her across the face. The impact and shock of the move sent Brooke back so that her head hit the wall. On instinct, she reached up to soothe the back of her head where it had hit the wall. The chains rattled.

  “Don’t fucking play games with us,” the man said. “We know he was staying there at that camp.”

  “We also know you were with him at Freedom Ridge,” the other man said, with a calmer demeanor.

  Brooke remained silent. She knew they had to be talking about Jon. She closed her eyes, fighting back emotion as she thought about him. The kitchen. The zombies. His expression as he’d fought them off at his feet and glanced up to see Brooke shut the door on him.

  The burly man stood up. “It’s a shame you won’t talk.” He looked back at his counterpart. “She looks pretty thirsty, doesn’t she, Bryce?”

  “She does.” The clean-cut man reached behind his back and pulled a water bottle from near his waist, unscrewing the top. Then, he put the bottle to his lips, drinking some of its contents. He next offered the bottle to the bearded man. “You want some, Bennett?”

  Bennett took the water bottle, enjoying a sip while he kept his eyes on Brooke. He smacked his wet lips as he swallowed, letting out an ‘ah’ in relief.

  Brooke licked her chapped lips. When she swallowed, she felt a pain in her dry throat. She wanted the water.

  “He’s dead,” she finally said.

  “Dead?” Bryce asked. “How?”

  “Zombies got him.”

  Bennett scoffed. “Yeah, right. We’re supposed to believe that zombies took down the Savage? The asshole who, along with your little camp of terrorists, took down my crew?”

  Brooke tilted her head. “You were part of the Vultures.”

  “I guess now you recognize me.”

  Brooke turned her thoughts back to Jon. “He’s dead. I’m telling you, that’s what happened.”

  The burly man went to the window and lowered the blackout blinds halfway.

  “Wait!” Brooke said.

  “Maybe the next time we come by, you’ll be ready to tell us the truth instead of this bullshit.”

  He tossed the water bottle onto the floor, well out of Brooke’s reach. It had been at least half-full, and Brooke watched as the remaining contents spilled out.

  Then, the m
an pulled the blinds down, darkening the room again.

  “You have to believe me,” Brooke said.

  But Bennett walked across the room, joining Bryce out in the hall. They shut the door, again leaving Brooke in the darkness.

  Beating the bottom of her fist against the wall behind her, she screamed.

  2

  The dead bastards beat against the door, howling in a chorus of unrelenting screams.

  Jon South wasn’t sure how much more he could take.

  He’d thought he’d be dead by now. That the rot would have taken him and turned him into one of the monsters. He’d been sitting in the dark and waiting for that moment to come, promising himself that, when it did, he would finish the job himself. There was no way he was turning into one of those things snarling outside of the pantry.

  It would be a painful death. Jon had no more bullets for the gun; he’d used them all up fighting off the zombies before locking himself inside of the pantry. That had only been a day ago, but it seemed like so much longer. The beasts out there, clawing and scratching. Gnashing their teeth and spitting. Crying out as if they smelled his flesh on the other side of the door. They knew he was there, and the creatures had nowhere else to be.

  Sitting against the door, Jon screamed. He slammed his right elbow against the door behind him, beating back at the monsters. It did nothing but rile them up further, making them snarl louder and pound harder.

  Jon put his face in his hands. He couldn’t take it anymore. Even when he tried to form a thought in his head about anything else besides the infected on the other side of the door fighting to get to him, he couldn’t. His temples pounded at the same rhythm of the creatures—a frantic mess sounding like a dozen drummers, each playing a different tune. It was maddening.

  No longer could he wait for the infection to take hold. The time had come.

  He unsheathed the knife at his waist and pressed the blade against his left wrist. Death would be slow and painful. It would be hell. But it would take him away from the prison which had become this pantry. Never again would he have to listen to the zombies scratching at and pounding on the door. To kill himself would silence them forever.

  As he held the blade against his wrist, Jon leaned his head back against the door and closed his eyes. In what would be his last moments, he found the strength to push aside the sounds of the zombies beating against the door and give himself some final thoughts.

  He thought of Carrie and Spencer. Even though it had only been just over a year, it felt like a generation had passed since he’d held them. He wanted to think he would see them again, once enough blood drained from his wrist to whisk him away from this dying world. But he couldn’t help wondering what kind of a higher being would create such a hell for the people they resided over. Would there even be a life after death, or would Jon simply bleed out on this floor, and then nothing?

  His mind drifted away from debating whether there was an afterlife, going to thoughts of Brooke. He kept thinking of what she’d looked like, leaving the kitchen while he fought to keep the zombies away from her and Terrence. Jon remembered how she’d kissed him in the final moments before he’d let the zombies into the room. They come to be single in different ways, but how cruel was it that they’d found each other at the end of the world?

  Now, it was time to end his own world for good.

  Jon glanced back down at the blade pressing against his arm, though he couldn’t see it in the dark. He pushed harder, feeling a little bit of blood stream down from either side of the blade. All he would have to do now was pull, and the knife would cross his veins, opening them. He then thought about the condition of his bite, causing him to pause.

  The wound hardly hurt. He hadn’t changed the bandage since the day before, seeing no reason to bother since he would die soon. Even though he couldn’t see it to confirm anything, he hadn’t felt any new blood come from the wound and stain the white bandage. More than all that, he didn’t feel bad, not beyond being a little sluggish and tired.

  He noticed he’d subconsciously relieved some of the pressure of the knife against his arm. But the beating against the door hadn’t lessened.

  His hand shook, and he dropped the knife down onto the ground. He sat up straight against the door, heaving in big breaths.

  Jon South wasn’t going out like this.

  He got onto his knees and searched for the knife on the floor, and then stood when he found it. Pacing back and forth, he ran his hands through his hair, nervously planning his next move. He asked himself one question most of all.

  Could I get out of here?

  There were nearly two dozen zombies in the kitchen who were standing between him and freedom. And even if he made it past the horde, Jon had still been bitten. He could turn at any time. But at least then he could die somewhere other than a pantry in a prison.

  Jon grabbed the door handle, licking his lips. He closed his eyes and listened to the zombies outside. He’d open the door and run, hoping he could somehow make it through the horde and out of the kitchen. His plan was ridiculous. It couldn’t work, but what did he have to lose?

  With his eyes still closed, he’d just grabbed the lock and started to turn it when something changed in the environment.

  The zombies stopped beating on the door.

  Jon opened his eyes, but remained still.

  The creatures were snarling, but they were no longer right against the door. He could even hear them shuffling away.

  “What the—“

  Then, he heard the first gunshots, and they startled him backward.

  Jon sat down on the floor and listened as the zombies screamed and the gunshots rang.

  3

  Jon sat on the floor in the darkness, listening to the gunshots go off in rapid succession. Whoever was out there wasn’t armed with only handguns. They had semi-automatic weapons.

  Had Brooke and the others come back for him?

  No matter how much he’d begged her to listen to him, Jon knew Brooke could’ve convinced the others to come back and rescue him. He knew that, even though she’d seen the predicament Jon had been in the last time she’d seen him, she wouldn’t assume him to be dead unless she saw it with her own eyes. Even knowing Jon had been bitten and had little time to live might not have been enough to convince her not to return.

  The gunfire continued for only about a minute before it ceased. Jon sat still and listened. He couldn’t hear the snarling zombies any longer. In fact, he heard nothing for several moments.

  “La habitación está despejada,” a male voice said.

  Jon didn’t speak Spanish. He could only understand a few essential words, but none of what the man said.

  “Revisa la siguiente habitación,” came another voice.

  Then, Jon heard footsteps.

  He couldn’t tell how many people were out there. He knew there were at least two men, but the footsteps suggested more than that. There had to be. Even with semi-automatic weapons, it should have taken more than two men to safely take out the pack of zombies outside of the pantry.

  Jon had to be prepared in case the men tried to get into the pantry. He felt around on the ground until he found his long-sleeved shirt, and he put it on, buttoning it three-quarters of the way up. The shirt covered the bite wound on his arm and would conceal it from the men. With no more bullets, he kept his gun fastened to his waist. He picked his bat and hatchet up off the ground and fastened them to his back. He thought to hold one to defend himself, but these men had semi-automatic weapons. Probably best to show them he wasn’t a threat; thus, he remained unarmed.

  Outside the door, the men stepped on the debris scattered across the kitchen floor, searching the area. Whoever was out there must be confident they’d taken out all of the zombies because they didn’t seem to care about how much noise they made. Jon remained still, steadying his breaths and being sure not to make any noise.

  Then, he heard the footsteps move closer to the pantry. Under the door, he saw
the shadow of a figure standing on the other side. The door handle jiggled, but it didn’t open. Jon had locked it.

  The person on the other side tried several more times before saying something in Spanish to the others.

  “Rompe la puerta,” a man said from the kitchen.

  Jon tried translating those words, but was distracted by a slam against the door. He scooted back, not wanting the door to come down on him. Before he could react or think about what he would do when the men found him, the door came off its hinges, landing on the ground in front of him.

  Light shined into the pantry, coming in around the figure standing in the doorway. Jon covered up his face, his eyes not having been exposed to light in over twenty-four hours.

  The man in the door aimed his gun at Jon and yelled something in Spanish.

  “Don’t shoot!” Jon said. “I’m human. I’m alive.” He uncovered his face so that the man could see he wasn’t one of the zombies, and he raised his hands to show he was unarmed.

  Behind the man, several others appeared. Jon couldn’t make out an exact number, but it looked to be at least half-a-dozen. The man in the doorway kept his gun positioned on Jon. He shouted phrases in Spanish, but he spoke so fast that Jon didn’t have any sort of chance to try making out what the man was saying.

  “No hablo Español,” Jon said.